Submit your paper

Covering the full breadth of science

The Royal Society publishes high quality, peer reviewed journals. Nine of our journals cover the full breadth of the biological, physical and cross-disciplinary sciences and Notes and Records is dedicated to the history of science. We also publish Biographical Memoirs, an annual compilation of individual memoirs, which celebrates the lives and scientific achievements of Fellows of the Royal Society.

Whether you are publishing an individual article or a themed issue, we promise a first-class level of author service, high production values and worldwide dissemination in well-read and highly-cited publications.

A prestigious scientific legacy

The Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions, launched in 1665, was the world’s first scientific journal. It established the fundamental principles of scientific priority and peer review, used throughout scientific publishing ever since.

We continue to innovate in our publishing operation, exploiting technology and constantly reviewing our policies in order to support our mission of delivering a high quality service to authors and readers.

Submit your work to a Royal Society journal to benefit from 350 years of publishing experience.

High visibility and impact

Our journals continue to achieve high levels of citations and downloads year on year. Published articles benefit from the attention of a dedicated press and marketing operation. Royal Society journal content is regularly highlighted in the Washington Post, New York Times, BBC, Daily Telegraph, The Times, Reuters, Nature, New Scientist, as well as in a range of other print, online and broadcast media. Stories are also regularly covered in the research community-led news website The Conversation. We also promote our journals at numerous scientific conferences throughout the year. Our journals are included in Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and other indexing and abstracting services – enhancing the discoverability and dissemination of our content.

Rigorous review from experts in your field

Every manuscript receives rigorous and constructive peer review overseen by practising scientists who are world-class experts in their respective fields.

Our Editorial Boards are each chaired by a Fellow of the Royal Society and made up of distinguished scientists in relevant disciplines.

Open access options

We support open access publishing as part of our commitment to the widest possible dissemination of research. Two of our journals, Royal Society Open Science and Open Biology, are fully open access, while all our other journals provide optional open access.

Ease of submission and author care

When you submit a paper to one of our journals, we aim to make the process as simple and as straightforward as possible. We always welcome feedback and, if we can, try to act on it. A recent example is the introduction of format-free initial submission for all journals apart from Biology Letters.

Colour charges

There are no online or print colour charges when you choose to publish in a Royal Society journal.

Was this page useful?

Thank you for your feedback

Thank you for your feedback. Please help us improve this page by taking our short survey.